Death Canyon (13 page)

It was some kind of rally or protest. Cacophonous chants filled the evening air. Clusters of people held signs and banners. The town as a whole was politically engaged, so the gathering itself didn't surprise Noelle, but she was curious.

She got out of the truck to have a better look at the crowd. She searched for familiar faces but saw none. Not a single person she recognized.

Strange.

The protesters were dressed in drab, baggy clothing, hippies. The square smelled of sweat, patchouli, stale campfire, and weed. Their chants were uncoordinated and impossible to understand, but their picket signs spoke for them. Closest to her a thin, blond man held a sign that read, “End Earth Alteration!!!” Other signs declared: “Land Use: Is it really our decision to make?” and “What did Mother Earth ever do to you?”

Noelle approached another spectator, an old man, and asked what was going on.

“I don't really know,” the man responded. “Wasn't scheduled in the paper or anything.” The old man seemed upset by this.

Noelle nodded. “What exactly are they protesting?”

“The council is deciding whether or not to allow the big lot across from the Southside Works to be developed. The meeting is
taking place as we speak. Obviously, these guys oppose the development.”

“What are they going to build down there?” Noelle asked.

“I think it's more condominiums—something like that.” He seemed indifferent on the topic, more troubled by the fact that there was a gathering in his town square without public notice.

“Thanks.” Noelle walked back to her vehicle.

Someone had thrown an egg against the front windshield during her short absence. “Oh, shit!” she said aloud, entering the vehicle and looking around for the culprit. When she got in, she activated the windshield wipers, spraying the egg and its shell remnants with cleaning fluid and running the wipers over the mess. The egg smeared, further hindering Noelle's visibility, but she'd deal with it later.

Noelle started north on Cache again, noticing that of the many vehicles parked along Cache, very few had Wyoming plates. Instead, she saw cars from Oregon, Colorado, California, and Utah. Even some eastern states were represented—New Hampshire, Vermont, and New Jersey.

What would bring all these protesters to Jackson? All because of a condo development?

As she drove, Noelle thought. Tomorrow, after her a.m. patrol duties, she would head south along the Snake River to see what she could find for Jake.

But before that, Noelle had another stop in mind: she would go to the hospital to speak with the French woman widowed by the bear.
If she speaks English.

Noelle knew almost no French.

The thought of hospitals always made Noelle squirm. The smell, the lighting. And worst of all, the moans of pain and despair that echoed down the corridors. Tomorrow would be a
challenge for her, but she thought the visit might shed some light on the attack.

It was dark now. The reflectors that stood atop the roadside plastic tubes shone brightly back at Noelle as she drove. She reached down toward the dark floor on the passenger side of her truck to feel around for her phone, finding food wrappers, CDs, and a pair of sandals. The truck veered intermittently across the centerline.

Finally, she found the phone and dialed.

It was 8:15 p.m. Jake was getting antsy. He was starving and thirsty as hell. Terrell hadn't checked in for quite a while and not knowing what was going on outside the interrogation room bothered him. It was getting late in the evening and he had no desire to spend the night at the station. He was starting to fume.

To this point I've behaved and cooperated. If I don't get released in a few minutes, though, that's going to change.

Jake started to brainstorm procedural arguments that might get him out of the room. It had been a while since he had used that part of his brain. He knew there were plenty of tedious rules to follow when making an arrest and Jake hoped the chief had overlooked at least one of them.

Got it! Booking procedure.

An arrestee—a suspected criminal—had a right to be “booked”
after his arrest. The booking procedures include a mug shot, a suspect lineup, and fingerprinting. When a suspect is detained by the police for an unreasonable amount of time without being booked, he has the right to request that a judge issue a writ of habeas corpus, which allows the suspect to ask a judge to determine whether his detention is proper.

What defined an “unreasonable amount of time” varied from state to state, and Jake wasn't aware of Wyoming's protocol. But he remembered that an overnight stay in a holding area without a booking almost always constituted an unreasonable amount of time in any jurisdiction. It was worth a shot.

Jake stood up, walked to the door, and knocked loudly. There was no response. He waited half a minute and knocked again, even harder this time. A moment later Terrell opened the door.

“What do you need, Jake?” the chief asked. He looked overwhelmed. There was sweat on his brow and his face was red. Jake had no idea, but he had just disturbed the chief's Internet research on “workplace stressors.”

“I haven't been booked yet.” The chief didn't react.

“So? You want to be photographed? Is that why you knocked on the door? You wanna be booked?!” The chief turned, shaking his head.

Jake smiled a bit. He knew he had him.

Jake shouted, “Well, I expect then that you aren't going to ask me to spend the night here? You've gotta book me if you are going to keep me detained.” Jake paused. “Otherwise, I'll just get a writ tomorrow morning from the judge and the court will release me. You know you haven't got enough to keep me here in the court's eyes.”

Terrell thought for a moment, his hand still on the doorknob.

Yep. Got him.

He surely knew Jake was right—it was stupid of Terrell not to simply book him on the way in, when the men at the desk had inventoried and locked away his possessions. Now the officers who usually booked prisoners were gone for the evening.

Jake figured Terrell was leaning toward allowing him his freedom, partially for convenience's sake. The questioning, if you could call it that, had yielded very little that truly justified Jake's detention. Besides, the chief was tired.

“Okay, Jake. You're free to go. Please don't embarrass me by flying the coop tomorrow.
Please
. Did you speak with Noelle about this ‘hunch' that she's got?”

Jake was relieved and he let his guard down too. “I did. That's the reason she came in to see me. I assume you have the evidence now?” Jake hoped Noelle had done as he asked.

“She gave it to me before she left.”

“Good.” Jake was pleased. “Are you going to get a second opinion on the tooth?” he asked.

“Second opinion about what?”

“The tooth. Whether it's real.”

The chief just rolled his eyes. He didn't say a word.

The two men walked through the open door that had held Jake in for the past few hours, past the desks, usually empty at this hour, and computer monitors, which were usually dark, and finally arrived at the reception desk of the small police station. A nervous energy filled the air, despite the late hour. A few cops and support staff still bustled about. They were working overtime because of the recent events; there were public statements to prepare, crime scenes to preserve, and new evidence to process.

Terrell stepped away for a moment and then reappeared with the rest of Jake's possessions. Just as Jake looked at his cell phone—
realizing that its battery had died—the chief asked him whether he could find his own way home. He told Jake he was awaiting an important phone call.

Jake told him he could find his own ride, in part because he didn't want to inconvenience the chief, but also because he didn't really like the idea of getting back into the police cruiser. Jake wasn't easily embarrassed, but he nevertheless preferred that his neighbors and friends didn't see him being released from a cop car.

The valley had adequate public transportation in the form of buses—and there was a stop nearby. Jake walked from the police station past the town square and waited at the stop that sat just north of the square. A few early season tourists were still out taking photographs of the famous elk antler arches that haloed the entrance to the square. It was chilly again. The cool air helped Jake feel human after his temporary incarceration.

He waited a few minutes and caught the bus west toward Teton Pass, requesting that the driver stop at the small town that sat at the bottom of the pass before the road started its climb over the mountains. From there, a single-lane road paralleled Trout Run to the south. He could follow it and be home in a few minutes on foot.

As he walked, anxiety regarding the council's meeting that he had missed arose again in him. He was impatient to get home and to his cell phone's charger, so he could call Begaye and, he hoped, hear some good news.

Nick Begaye was a forty-something man of Navajo descent who had moved to Jackson Hole in his twenties from Taos, New Mexico. A competitive free skier, Nick moved in search of more consistent snowfall and better sponsor exposure. He'd faded from the extreme skiing scene as his injuries, and his age, piled up, but he
stuck around in Jackson. Like many, he'd discovered the extraordinary variety of activities available in the area. River sports and kayaking in particular had kept him entertained for years. Kayaking had the convenient attraction of being a comfortable sport for those with harshly used and battered legs. He had joined the town council five years ago.

Jake looked up to Nick. The two got along well and shared a common worldview. In the case of the current issue before the council—the development—Begaye agreed with Jake wholeheartedly, but Jake suspected Nick would hold his position with less tenacity. Nick Begaye took almost everything in stride. He didn't like to make a big stink.

Oh well. No use in guessing the outcome,
Jake thought as he walked down the drive leading to his home. He looked around for Chayote, who was nowhere to be seen.

*  *  *

Back at the station, Chief Terrell was on the phone with the weeping mother of the man found in the river—the call he had been awaiting when Jake left the station.

The call wasn't as helpful as the chief hoped.

No, Bryan never got into any trouble, and no, she had no reason to believe that someone would have purposefully murdered him.

Interestingly, though, she indicated that Bryan was her closest friend—and vice versa. Apparently the man had kept in touch with just a few friends by email, but otherwise he was quite the loner. The conversation continued—the man's mother sniffling and asking for verification that it was indeed
her
son who was found in the river.

It was.

She spoke a bit more about his personal life. The only thing that
Terrell deemed worthwhile enough to scrawl down on the otherwise blank piece of tablet paper were the words “Ondine's curse,” apparently a health condition the man had suffered from. Terrell knew nothing about it, but at least it was something.

After about twenty minutes, Terrell, as much as he pitied the woman, couldn't listen to her bawling monologue anymore. He was just too exhausted.

He thanked her for her time, expressed his condolences, gave her the 800 numbers for a few loss hotlines, and hung up. Then the chief decided to call it a day. He locked the front door of the police station and headed for his car. Until morning, the police force in Jackson would operate through a shared dispatch center at the hospital and just a single patrolling officer.

*  *  *

Home at last, Jake walked into the guesthouse and went upstairs to the loft, where he could charge his cell phone and call Begaye to get the scoop on the meeting.

Jake plugged the phone into the charger next to his bed and waited while it started up, slipping off his shoes and lying down on top of the covers. When the phone finally lit up with life, he reached over and dialed Begaye's number. He was sitting up now, too anxious to hear the news lying down.

It hadn't gone well, Begaye informed him. Yes, Jake's letter was read and everyone had genuinely appreciated his efforts. Many council members even expressed the same concerns.

“But where da hell were you, man? What happened?” Begaye kept asking, his Navajo accent struggling to convey anger over the phone. Jake deflected the question each time.

When it came down to it, the council as a whole couldn't resist
the money pledged to the town by the developer. Recent years had been difficult for the tourist town—the national economy was faltering and as a result, people were stashing away their checkbooks and staying at home. Unnecessary spending such as vacation expenses was among the first to be cut from the budget of cash-pressed families. The town just wasn't collecting the lodging tax revenue that it needed to maintain its public buildings and facilities.

This reality flew in the face of Jake's philosophy in many ways, but he always felt he could reconcile the two. Of course the town needed resources for the public good. Nobody could argue with that. But to Jake there was not so fine a line between making rational compromises for the greater good and pawning off irreplaceable natural resources for cash.

Still, he wondered:
If there was no greed, if nobody came to Jackson to pay to catch fish after fish or to develop land, wouldn't our little community collapse?

He had pondered the question before.

Begaye was still talking, but Jake wasn't listening.

This is exactly the point of the political process and the beauty of being human, though. We are supposed to be too smart to pick something and stick with it regardless of the circumstances. We're supposed to innovate and compromise.